KILIMANJARO.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In your issue of November 7th, 1885, you ask the ques- tion, "Will anybody jest tell us what we want with Kilimanjaro, the great mountain district in East Africa ?" Though, perhaps you may not agree with me, I must trust to your courtesy to give your readers the answer of one who has been for some years in Equatorial Africa.
An enterprising mercantile people which has undertaken the task of suppressing the trade in African negroes, requires two things,—first, markets for its goods and fresh openings for its enterprise; and, secondly, some means by which it can stop the stream of slave traffic at its source. There is an ever-increasing demand for cotton cloth in the interior of Africa, which might be exchanged for the products of these lake regions, possessing as they do one of the most perfect climates in the world, and producing india-rubber, oil nuts, cotton, coffee, tobacco, cassava, the plantain, with its fruit which can be dried and its fibre of great mercantile value, also the fibre of the barkcloth tree, Indian corn, wheat, and other grain, not to speak of imported fruits, such as the guava, pomegranate, and paipai, which flourish here. As an example of demand producing supply, wheat was absolutely unknown when our mission here was started ; but when a little seed had been procured, and when the people found that they could earn a few cowries by selling it, they very soon learned to grow it, and now we are able to buy as much as we require. Hides and ivory are things, too, of which there is a large amount.
This most fertile and magnificent region will sooner or later be the prize for which Europe will compete. Germany already seems to be bent on acquiring the road which Speke and Stanley opened up to the Nyanza. If England is to have a road to what should be her great market, it must be further to the North ; the route seems to be from Freretown to the end of Speke Gulf. If you draw a line between these two points, you will find that it passes through the Kilimanjaro district. Here, then, let England establish a military colony, reducing her naval force in Zanzibar waters to meet part of the cost. From this point she could strike an effective, continuous, and crushing blow at the very root of the slave trade. Let Lancashire form a trading company with a substantial capital, and let a narrow- . gauge railway be run from Freretown to Speke Gulf, and one of the richest and most fertile regions of the earth would be opened to legitimate commerce. The accounts of travellers who have only passed through such countries as Ugogo, Unyamwesi, and the tract between the coast and Kilimanjaro, give no idea of the glorious fertility of a land like this. The railway spoken of would eventually tap the Equatorial provinces of the Soudan. The proximity of European law and European civilisation in a land of lawlessness and cruel barbarity, could not but be most beneficial to the native races, which are at present waging an internecine warfare. You may pass for hours through the richest and most fertile slopes and valleys without seeing a sign of human life. Africa is crying for peace, a boon which such men as Liviegstone, Gordon, and Hannington have been willing to lay down their lives to procure for her. Yes ; but what of the rights of potentates and powers, of rulers and kings? And what of the wrongs of peoples and provinces, of serfs and slaves ? The good sense of honest men, conscious of a righteous aim, will settle the question so that rights shall be recognised and
wrongs shall be redressed. And, after all, the Bargashes and Mandaras, the Mwangas and Kabaregas, are the very few, while the oppressed and downtrodden subjects are a countless multi- tude. Thus, in outline, I have endeavoured to answer your question of "What do we want with Kilimanjaro ?"—I am, (Of the Church Missionary Society.) Bagan,da, Victoria Nyanza, April 7th.
Previous page
